


dissolve & rebuild

by stevieraebarnes



Series: rectify [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Hurt Jason Todd, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post RHATO 25, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-07-08 09:21:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15927479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stevieraebarnes/pseuds/stevieraebarnes
Summary: Dick Grayson attends to Jason in the aftermath of Bruce's actions





	dissolve & rebuild

**Author's Note:**

> For Ravenwolf36 who suggested some Dick and Jay comfort after the events of the poem from Part 1

“What happened to you?”

Jason remains unmoving in his bed, but opens an eye to see Dick Grayson standing before him. The light of his workstation monitors from beyond the room illuminate Dick’s body in the doorframe.

“The Bat happened,” Jason says. He closes his eye and drifts back to sleep.

 

* * *

 

Jason wakes up bandaged and with a warm body close, but not invasive. He brings a hand to his face and feels a few butterfly bandages plus the sticky residue of leftover ointment. He joins both hands together and inspects them; his gloves had ripped against the Bat’s armor and he knows the flesh of his knuckles had torn. Before him, the backs of his hands are clean; gauze and medical tape wrapped snug around the width of his palms. His nails have been cleaned of leather and blood and a wrist is wrapped.

He lifts the bed sheet to find his ribs bandaged additionally, and the movement of the sheet sends a thick waft of a medicinal smell to his face. Jason carefully pulls the sheet back around him, trying to keep his wrist straight as he works to get comfortable again. He doesn’t remember feeling this sore and injured when he first laid down.

The body next to him stirs and Jason turns his head freely and without pain.

“Dickie,” Jason calls out. It’s soft, but firm. He demands answers, but he’s not ungrateful.

“Mmm?” Dick mumbles into the pillow he’s nestled into like it was always his.

“What are you doing?”

It’s takes Dick a few beats to answer, like the words have to take a circuitous detour when the brain is in sleep mode.

“Trying to sleep,” Dick eventually settles on.

“Yeah, I see that.”

Jason pauses. He doesn’t want Dick to leave. He doesn’t know _why_ he doesn’t want Dick to leave. Usually he licks his wounds in private. Usually he hates for the Bats to see him without his armor. But the Golden Child is here, in his bed, and Jason wants to bask in the undivided attention. Does it matter that Dick's mostly asleep?

Dick slowly rolls onto his back and Jason watches him work up the energy to speak.

“I got tired after treating your injuries,” Dick says. “The bed was right here, calling to me.”

Dick’s shoulders sink further into the mattress and Jason hears his breathing slow.

“It’s okay, Dick. You can stay.” He says it to himself more so than his predecessor. Jason carefully settles his tenderized body next to Dick and lets sleep overtake him once more.

 

* * *

 

Jason wakes again, with more soreness than before. His cheekbones and forehead throb, and his body aches with a familiar dullness that he’s grown accustomed to over the years of vigilante work. He thinks back to the events that happened, and it’s not the beatdown from Batman that lowers his spirits, or B’s words of anger and disappointment.

It’s the coldness of the bed next to him.

Jason reaches a hand out -- damn his injuries -- to feel emptiness. Dick Grayson is long gone.

He opens his eyes to confirm that, yes, he is alone in his bed, in his safehouse, but he spies something beyond the pillow obscuring most of his view. It’s a slip of paper on the nightstand.

Jason uses his forearms to push himself into a sitting position, then slowly scoots to the other side of the bed to reach the note with as much grace as he can manage. It’s not pretty. But his reward for his efforts sits between his fingers as he holds the note in his lap for a few seconds. It’s folded over in a haphazard manner. The sides of the paper don’t line up at all, but still reveal nothing. Jason flips the top side open to read a brief scrawl in a pen that Jason didn’t see on the table top. He absurdly wonders if Dick took the pen with him before pushing the thought away so he can focus on the swooping feeling in his gut; so different from the heaviness of his cuts and bruises.

 _See you again tonight,_ Dick has written.


End file.
